Featured Book: Any Road Will Take You There

Any Road Will Take You ThereAny Road Will Take You There
by David W. Berner
Genres: travelogue, memoir
Available from Amazon.com and Amazon UK

Recently divorced and uncertain of the future, a middle-age father takes his teenage sons and best friend on a 5000-mile road trip to rekindle his spirit. But a family secret turns the journey into an examination of fatherhood, revealing the struggles and triumphs of being a dad, and the imperfect ties that connect us all.

 Book Excerpt:

Denver was in front of us now. Graham watched a movie on the computer. Casey aimed his video camera at the road sign marking the mileage to Denver. Soon we would meet my friend Brad and then settle in for three full days in the city that was the nucleus of Kerouac’s On the Road. We were following the rough plan of a road map, but somewhere in a dusty corner of Colorado, it became clear how irrelevant any map really was. A couple of years before he died, George Harrison sang a song in a surprise performance on VH1. The lyrics to “Any Road” emerged from my memory as if illuminating the pavement in front of me, words about taking a road, any road, to find out where you’re headed. Yes, I wanted to stay true to Kerouac’s travels, but it really didn’t matter. Any road would take us where we were going.

What others are saying:

“The impact this book has on the reader is a compelling realization that each of us – fathers, sons, grandfathers – faces the same questions of the matrix of the bond that somehow is never broken, no matter how the polar ends are strained. Highly recommended.” – Grady Harp, Amazon Hall of Fame, Top 100, Vine Voice Reviewer 

Only Your Mum Will Read It

Why do people write non-fiction? I don’t mean the dry sort that people who ‘don’t have time for fiction’ read. They will never understand that storying is part of being human, whereas we know that the best fiction feels truer than reality, deep in a place where the birth of humanity necessitated art and the telling of tales.

I’m talking memoirs here, travelogues, narrative non-fiction. Why bother? Publishers and agents hate them, they’re hard to sell online, they don’t get reviewed. Didn’t we grow out of What I Did on My Holidays in grade school? Nobody is that interesting, except to their Mum, even if they’re already famous. In fact, especially if they’re already famous. Continue reading “Only Your Mum Will Read It”

Book Brief: A Year on Planet Alzheimer

A Year on Planet Alzheimer
by Carolyn Steele
Genre: Memoir/Travelogue
70,000 words
What happens when a single parent from London, England heads for Canada to care for an elderly lady in case it’s fun?

Described by readers as a cross between Bridget Jones and Bill Bryson, A Year on Planet Alzheimer is almost the story of an adventure. It isn’t quite a travelogue, despite being largely about places. It would be dereliction of duty to omit to pass comment on the remarkable ceiling at Vancouver Bus Station for example or the shattering discovery that they don’t turn Niagara Falls off at night.

Neither is it really a psychological exploration of living with dementia, despite the title. It is almost the story of a child…what happens when you tell a nine-year-old that travel broadens the mind? What does travel do to a nine-year-old mind?

Mainly there is life and the sheer unexpectedness of the way other people live it. Not just the snow dump but the incredulity this odd pair of travellers generated by wanting to see it. It could be the story of an adventure with a few more shimmering sunsets dancing over majestic waves. There are some majestic waves, naturally, but they are more obsessed with meatballs. It is therefore the story of an escapade.

This title is available from Amazon US and Amazon UK. Continue reading “Book Brief: A Year on Planet Alzheimer”